"The Pirate Queen"

The Island of Clare — Clare Island, where Grace O’Malley, a clan chieftain’s daughter, spent much of her childhood (Wikimedia CC)

We’re just back from dinner and a musical, which we enjoyed with a friend.

The dinner was at one of our favorite Salt Lake Valley restaurants, the Market Street Grill in South Jordan. Excellent seafood. Wonderful clam chowder. Even the sourdough bread is really, really good.

The musical was The Pirate Queen, at the Hale Centre Theatre in West Valley City.

It was written by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil — you may recognize a couple of their other little musicals, which have been fairly popular: Miss Saigon and Les Misérables — and it’s based on the really interesting true historical character of Grania Uh Mhaille or Gráinne Ní Mháille (Anglicized as Grace O’Malley) and her eventual real conversation with Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1593. They were archenemies and precise contemporaries, both born in 1533 and both dying in 1603.

Grace and Liz meet — The meeting between Grace O’Malley and Queen Elizabeth the Great, which, since Elizabeth spoke no Irish and Grace spoke no English, was conducted entirely in Latin
(Wikimedia Commons)

The stage design was ingenious.

Having such live theater available to us here along the Wasatch Front is a great treasure.

“The Pirate Queen”